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Seems to me that the ideal headset:* has dual high-res cams located above the eyes, or quad cams above and below, which can 'average' out to eye level* Is translucent/transparent with an electrochromic backplate* has pupil sensors on the inside* is wireless, perhaps with a battery 'pendant' that incorporates some UWB connection to the host computer* integrated mic on the bottom of the goggle frame as well as noise-cancelling mic on top* face cams can recognize fingertips, physical cues (like a laser mouse) to handle fine head orientation* possibly incorporate hardware neural net coprocessors for support features as well as image/pattern recognition

gbjbaanb writes A British company is developing a new material that's so black it absorbs all but 0.035 percent of the visual light, making it the darkest material ever created. Of course, apart from making album covers, it conducts heat 7 times better than copper and is 10 times stronger than steel. "The nanotube material, named Vantablack, has been grown on sheets of aluminium foil by the Newhaven-based company. While the sheets may be crumpled into miniature hills and valleys, this landscape disappears on areas covered by it. 'You expect to see the hills and all you can see it's like black, like a hole, like there's nothing there. It just looks so strange,' said Ben Jensen, the firm's chief technical officer.

sciencehabit (1205606) writes For decades, physicists have sought the sources of the most energetic subatomic particles in the universe — cosmic rays that strike the atmosphere with as much energy as well-thrown baseballs. Now, a team working with the Telescope Array, a collection of 507 particle detectors covering 700 square kilometers of desert in Utah, has observed a broad 'hotspot' in the sky in which such cosmic rays seem to originate. Although not definitive, the observation suggests the cosmic rays emanate from a distinct source near our galaxy and not from sources spread all over the universe.

redletterdave writes: "'Project Xanadu,' designed by hypertext inventor Ted Nelson to let users build documents that automatically embed the sources they're linking back to and show the visible connections between parallel webpages, was released in late April at a Chapman University event. Thing is, development on Xanadu began in 1960 — that's 54 years ago — making it the most delayed software in history. 'At its simplest, Xanadu lets users build documents that seamlessly embed the sources which they are linking back to, creating, in Nelson's words, "an entire form of literature where links do not break as versions change; where documents may be closely compared side by side and closely annotated; where it is possible to see the origins of every quotation; and in which there is a valid copyright system - a literary, legal and business arrangement - for frictionless, non-negotiated quotation at any time and in any amount." The version released on the internet, named OpenXanadu, is a simple document created using quoted sections from eight other works, including the King James Bible and the Wikipedia page on Steady State Theory.'"

mdsolar (1045926) writes with news of nuclear plants across the U.S. dealing with the consequences of the failure of Yucca Mountain. From the article:
"The steel and concrete containers used to store the waste on-site were envisioned as only a short-term solution when introduced in the 1980s. Now they are the subject of reviews by industry and government to determine how they might hold up — if needed — for decades or longer. With nowhere else to put its nuclear waste, the Millstone Power Station overlooking Long Island Sound is sealing it up in massive steel canisters on what used to be a parking lot. The storage pad, first built in 2005, was recently expanded to make room for seven times as many canisters filled with spent fuel. ... The government is pursuing a new plan for nuclear waste storage, hoping to break an impasse left by the collapse of a proposal for Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department says it expects other states will compete for a repository ... But the plan faces hurdles including a need for new legislation that has stalled in Congress."
There's always recycling or transmutation.

He's doing it for the lulz, to tweak the particularly strident greentards that infect Australia.

That said, if Australia went full-bore into PRISM and LFTR development (by, perhaps, providing some funding but mostly just expediting red tape and silencing greenies/NIMBYs) they could very well build a 11- or 12-figure industry around it instead of leaving it to China or India.

LFTRs would take up less space, be more efficient, and rather than consuming water for cooling they could use low-grade leftover process heat to desalinate water. So, instead of being a massive freshwater sink it would be a freshwater source for piping inland (or, depending on the site, a river could be reversed for that task?)

Otis does not exist, except as an odd character that lingers on/. and as a construct in my mind. He's like me, but a bit stranger, and a bit more verbose. He also has, on occasion, written some pretty nasty things, but he swears that was only fiction.